


i know things now (but i never thought it would hurt like this)

by green_andproudofit



Category: Chess - Rice/Ulvaeus/Andersson
Genre: Angst, F/M, but it's hard, florence gets outta there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29141916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_andproudofit/pseuds/green_andproudofit
Summary: Florence leaves the same night that the international press announces the winner of the 1989 world chess championship.title is from "Into the Woods"
Relationships: Anatoly Sergievsky/Florence Vassy, Anatoly Sergievsky/Svetlana Sergievsky
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	i know things now (but i never thought it would hurt like this)

**Author's Note:**

> couldn't get this idea out of my mind and ended up just writing it down without much thinking or planning or whatever so sorry for any mistakes or inconsistencies...

It's dark out when she leaves the hotel, the hood of her coat pulled all the way down to her brows as if she were a criminal running from a crime scene.

Which, coming to think about it, she kind of is. After all, she is the one that destroyed a family just there. Without a second thought, a backward glance. Nothing. Not contemplating her options once, she did what she had vowed herself to never ever do.

Act regardless of the consequences. Just like her father had when—but no.

Florence clamps her eyes shut. She won't go there. Not tonight. Not when she's _this close_ to breaking down, her heart almost bursting in her chest from the impossible pressure of her wrongdoing, her stupidity, her naiveté. Not when the tears welling in her eyes might spill at any second.

As a light gust of night air gets up to stroke through nearby palm trees, it blows the hood off Florence's head. The rain is warm on her cheeks and her eyes flutter close for a moment. She takes a deep breath. There's the smell of fresh water in the air, some fruits that Florence can't name but that the marketers had surely been selling this morning. Another breath and she notices the intense scent of honey and apple coming off of her hair. It's the smell of the -probably insanely expensive- conditioner she used just this morning and more than anything else she hopes the scent will be drowned out by that of cheap plastic seats and airport perfumeries by the end of the night.

A smirk tugs at the corners of Florence's mouth. Mere 12 hours ago, she thought about stealing some of the small conditioner bottles. How drastically things can change in nothing short of a day.

Then, Florence opens her eyes again. She throws a quick glance at the huge clock in the foyer of the hotel and then turns to lift her suitcase off the curb. Her flight departs in two and a half hours but boy, seems that far away now.

She glances up and down the street to see if the cab that she had herself be called is already there and when she can't spot one, she sinks against the handle of her suitcase.

Almost four hours after the international press announced the winner of the 1989 world chess championship, -four hours to the tick if that cabdriver hurries up a bit- she can finally allow herself to relax.

Right after the game, there were (false) smiles to be smiled and angry outbursts to suppress (“You fucking bastard!”) and then, the damn media asked for Florence Vassy to take part at the big press conference after -as if she didn’t have anything better to do. (Scream into the crook of her elbow for example while she holds back tears.) As if she was important. So, she was stuck in a one-hour press conference, the man that made her heart want to burst in both rage and adoration beside her and the man's wife across the room, sitting there, all blonde and beautiful and seemingly not knowing what to do.

“Wait,” Anatoly called in that soft voice that always made her melt -and still does- as soon as the cameras had been turned off. As soon as Florence had jumped up from her seat. His fingers grazed her wrist but still, she went on, trying to distance herself from him as far (and fast) as she could. But, as she'd found out long before, they were practically unable to avoid fighting, so she stood rooted to the ground just outside the hall until he appeared beside her and led her into the gardens. And there, they fought. Tooth and nails over something they both already knew to be lost. Until Anatoly had tears in his eyes because he is soft that way and until she had flames licking along the inside of her veins because if he is soft, then Florence is angry. At least in the heat of the moment.

They ended up kissing anyway. As they always do _-did_ , Florence reminds herself. And as they always did as well, they thought all problems solved by that kiss. Which is only natural, she thinks, when lips match this well, tongues slip all the right ways to evoke uncontrolled gasps _every single time_ and heaven seems just about to open up for them.

Later, a mere hour later, Florence had to learn what she had known before. That kiss did not solve anything and there had been no miracle cure. Instead, a knock on the door of her room and the suspiciously happy smile of Walter de Courcey served to be a wakeup call, cruel beyond the previous meanings of the word.

Florence had put all her hopes on one thing and now, she is pretty damn sure that she lost everything.

Anatoly would leave. Leave Bangkok, leave Thailand, leave England, even. But that is not the problem. It never was.

The problem is he's leaving _her_ , and he's leaving her heartbroken. And she simply can’t have that.

So, she had the receptionist book a flight to London, packed her suitcase and left before he could be the first to.

She figures that if she is the one breaking _his_ heart by leaving him behind, hers might not hurt quite as much. Although she of course can’t be sure if his heart will break much at all. He has a wife to look after him, after all, and children to lift his mood. Florence doesn't have anything of the kind. No husband, no children, no family. Not even one to hope for, it seems.

One year ago, there'd been a friend of sorts. But now, she’s alone.

The bang of a door has Florence wince and, blinking, she spots a yellow and green car to her right.

“Finally,” she mutters as she makes it out to be her taxi.

Her taxi driver is small-built and dark skinned and there's a scar on the left side of his jaw that almost looks as if inflicted by a knife. When the man noticed her suitcase, he hastily jumps out of the car to open the trunk and put the suitcase inside.

“Thank you,” says Florence and the man waves a hand.

He's already back inside his car when she can’t stop herself from turning around once more.

This, she thinks as she takes in the bright light of the chandeliers inside the foyer, the huge palm trees standing to each side of the entrance, swaying in the wind, is it.

She will, God knows, never return. She will never try to think about it too much, try to cry about it too hard.

She left a note on Anatoly's side of the bed (“Goodbye") and she thinks that, by now, he must have returned from that spontaneous meeting he had disappeared to. And when she closes her eyes, Florence can practically see him enter his (their) room, can watch his mouth fall open in surprise and disbelief.

Florence opens the door of the passenger side and carefully slides into the seat. Her eyes are firmly fixed upon the hotel's entrance. Perhaps, she thinks, he'll run out in a few seconds to try and keep her from leaving. They'll share another kiss or two, hot tears on both their cheeks, and then, she'll have to hurry so she won’t miss her plane.

But the doors stay closed and Anatoly remains nowhere to be seen.

“To the airport,” Florence says to the driver and somehow, every single word stings her heart like a well-placed stab of a knife would.

She sucks in a sharp gasp and holds her breath and waits till the cab has turned the next corner. Only then does she take another breath.

This should feel as if she's finally free. Instead, it feels as if she's chaining herself down.

The weight on her chest has doubled down on her and she can’t do anything against it.

Because _her_ magical cure are lips that aren't hers to kiss anymore and without them, she doesn’t know how to survive.


End file.
